


prime numbers

by happyisahabit



Series: poetry prompts - naruto [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kakashi cares for his students, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, POV Haruno Sakura, Post-Chapter 699 (Naruto), author didn't mean to write this, author got derailed, co-dependency kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27582086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyisahabit/pseuds/happyisahabit
Summary: She’d laugh at how inelegant the illustrious Sharingan Kakashi and the apprentice of the Godaime Hokage look in a slumped heap on the muddy ground, battered and bleeding, but she no longer has any energy. They’re only sitting up by the force of Kakashi leaning forward as much as Sakura leans back.
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Haruno Sakura, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi
Series: poetry prompts - naruto [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016248
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	prime numbers

**Author's Note:**

> This *was* supposed to be SaiSaku, but once Kakashi popped up he took over my brain, as usual. Got a prompt for my choice using “Even if you have it all, something’s always lacking” as inspiration. Tried to capture how the Konoha-locked segment of Team 7 might feel in the immediate aftermath of the manga (minus chapter 700) and that somehow led to a sort of co-dependency. Not really intended to be kakasaku, but I can't stop you from reading it that way.

They are here. Both finally within her grasp. Banter, apologies, tears… it is all there between them and some large space in her heart is filling, even more when Kakashi lands behind her. Sakura glances back at him when he stumbles just a bit. She’s still worried about his wounds and chakra levels, but the cooling blood beneath her hands is a little more pressing.

Naruto coughs wetly and she returns attention to their wounds. Seriously, who fights until they lose an arm with their so-called best friend? How their bond lasts even through mortal wounds… Sakura didn’t know and didn’t understand.

She applies the chakra equivalent of a tourniquet to their arms, the mark on her forehead flashing as both her unruly patients fluttered into unconsciousness. She shakes with the effort, calculating and calculating each drop of chakra she had used during the slog of battles leading to victory and that passes through her hands now.

“Sakura…” Kakashi mutters softly. His hand rests heavy on her shoulder and gently, ever so gently, pulls her away. The green light from her palms flickers out. 

Sakura lets herself be handled as she sinks back into Kakashi who falls onto his backside. She’d laugh at how inelegant the illustrious Sharingan Kakashi and the apprentice of the Godaime Hokage look in a slumped heap on the muddy ground, battered and bleeding, but she no longer has any energy. They’re only sitting up by the force of Kakashi leaning forward as much as Sakura leans back.

Her head falls back onto his shoulder, cheek scratching on the rough and torn fabric of his flack vest. It is grounding.

“Kaka-sen-”

“How many years was it?” he cuts her off. She hums at him and he nearly slaps her in the forehead with two fingers. “...Eh, Sakura?”

She stays silent, watching the few wisps of cloud overhead. Kakashi huffs a little and Sakura presses her cheek into the side of his neck. Beneath all the horrid scents of war, the unmistakable aroma of ozone, standard issue detergent, and the type of petrichor she always associates with Konoha’s surrounding forests permeates her senses. She takes comfort in it just like she takes comfort in the fingers that softly press over her wrist, gauging her pulse.

It’s just as much a comfort to him, she’s sure.

“Where are Sai and Yamato-taichou?” she asks instead. The frown on his face is evident in how his cheek muscles twitch against her shoulder.

“We’ll find them as soon as I can find the energy to summon Pakkun,” he grumbles.

“No more chakra usage for you,” she admonishes even as his fingers press on her pulse again. “Not for… at least a week, doctor’s orders.”

She expects his usual ‘Hai, Hai, Sakura-hakase!’ but gets nothing except his grip tightening. "From now and then all that time before, with-" he inhales sharply to catch the name in his throat. "...Two? Three? Five?”

“Keep guessing prime numbers and I’ll tell you,” Sakura whispers. They sit there for minutes, measured by the thrum of blood in her veins and the carefully regulated breaths from his lungs. Slowly, she reaches up and cards her fingers into sweaty, blood and dirt matted silver hair. “About… eleven.”

Kakashi curls around her tighter and his voice comes out strained to the breaking point. “Don’t-” He drags in a shuddering breath that she can feel from the tremors wracking his chest against her back to the depths of her soul. Sakura’s grip on his hair increases and her eyes close against the memories of Obito. Knowing what she knew now, about Kakashi’s Sharingan, his team, everything, Obito’s death must have hit him again and the thought of losing  _ more _ …

“I’m here.” She makes a move to turn to him, but he only clamps down harder. Sakura relaxes, letting him be. “I’m still here, Kakashi,” she whispers. “The boys are here and I’m not going anywhere.”

That’s how Sai and Yamato find them, hours later. Naruto and Sasuke, unconscious but alive and breathing, laid out side by side with matching amputations. Kakashi, asleep but still firmly keeping her in place, fingertips over her pulse. Sakura, staring at the sky vacantly with one hand still pressing little circles into his scalp.

Yamato forms a shelter and helps them inside while Sai sends a messenger back for a medic. Sakura protests-  _ she’s the medic, idiot- _ but this somehow wakes Kakashi who does his best impression of her, ordering a week-long ban on chakra use. Her mouth twists unhappily. Yamato doesn’t understand when Kakashi threatens an eleven year ban and Sakura slumps back to let Sai send his message.

She doesn’t remember much after that. The return to Konoha is long and arduous, though Sakura only retains flashes of it. Kakashi hovers as much as his own exhaustion allows, tugging her away from patients who could use her help, and she hates him for it in each moment. Yet, at the end of the day, none of those patients go without treatment from Shizune and C’s remaining medic corps. She’s glad but it makes her feel empty and restless.

Sasuke and Naruto slip in and out of consciousness, out more often than in. She and Sai sit with them while Kakashi and Yamato go with Shikamaru to meet the other Kages. At night, invariably, she finds herself shoulder to shoulder with Kakashi. If they aren’t passed out slumped against a wall together, he has a grasp on some part of her person. Sakura doesn’t begrudge him the worry and in those moments, her distaste for his overprotective nature softens. 

“Kakashi…” she says into the dark. “I know you’re awake.”

“Maa, I’m asleep, Sakura.”

“Sure you are.”

He sighs and turns, releasing his pinky from where it was caught onto her sleeve. Neither of them were used to sleeping in anything other than fatigues yet. “What is it?”

The darkness is safe as it is ambivalent. It won’t judge her and neither will Kakashi. “What will happen now?” she asks.

“How do you mean?”

“We’re back together, all of us but…”  _ Sasuke is not who he was, _ she leaves unsaid.  _ None of us are. _ It sticks to the back of her throat just like dozens of other thoughts that haunt her during daylight hours. When everyone expects her confidence and brass and expertise, she only wants to sit back down in the dark, away from it all. 

Kakashi is silent, thinking. “There are expectations,” he starts, and all Sakura can think of is how everyone has been calling her Tsunade’s Second Coming and how lifeless Kakashi’s eyes look when he leaves another meeting of the Kages. Still, they go, duty-bound and loyal. “The village needs direction, the people a sense of normalcy, our allies certain assurances…”

“And the team..?” She doesn’t specify and he thankfully doesn’t ask her whether she means Team Kakashi or Team 7.

“...it’ll depend,” he says wearily, like this is something that he’s thought about too much. “On what they decide to do.”

She knows he means Naruto and Sasuke. Sai and Yamato would stay in Konoha. Kakashi would stay. She would stay. That was all given. Yet, Naruto, who spent his most formative years outside the village walls, despite hungering for the Kage seat... Sasuke, who had abandoned the village, on his course for revenge and power…

“Thank you,” she mutters, turning towards him.  _ For not just saying ‘it’ll be alright’, _ she adds silently. As much as she wishes for the comforting naivete of youth, of depending on her superiors, she is no longer a child. 

She sees the glint of weapons and hands reaching out covered in blood during sleeping hours, Her nights are filled with the screams of patients who had to go without anesthesia and the rattling breaths of those who died under her flickering green light. She’s woken many times in a cold sweat, the cloying phantom scent of rotting flesh and explosives caught in her throat. Each time, Kakashi’s presence grounds her back into the present. Sakura wonders if he knows, if he sees the same when he closes his eyes and dreams, if that is the reason he hovers.

Her hand reaches out, slowly telegraphing its path to him, landing on his wrist. He draws a deep breath and exhales quietly. There’s a light pressure on her forehead where her byakugou no in is starting to darken once again, a soft movement of her bangs away from her face. His hand moves and fingers curl around her thumb loosely.

“Rest, Sakura.”

She falls into a dreamless sleep that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Took some liberties with how the byakugo no in works in that using it for more than just creation rebirth can affect the lifespan. Sakura got impaled an awful lot and then healed a shit ton of people and then used the seal to use rebirth on Obito for a long time. That's quite the strain.


End file.
